The Reality of Men's Health

Posted: 15 June 2018

Men’s Health Week is about recognising the unique health challenges faced by our male family and friends and reaching out to help them. Brothers, fathers, sons and partners; the men in our lives are important to us. Unfortunately, most men are not great at looking after themselves.

The passing of Anthony Bourdain last week has again brought suicide and mental illness into watercooler conversations. There were 3027 suicides in Australia in 2015 – three quarters of whom were males [1]. Intentional self-harm accounted for more Years of Life Lost in Australia than any other illness in 2015 (103 442 years). This is a greater cost of life years annually than breast cancer, colon cancer, melanoma and pancreatic cancers combined [2].

Male rates of Drug-induced and Drug-related deaths is double that of females [3]. In fact, alcohol kills 6 times more men than women globally [4]. Together, poor mental health and substance abuse disorders top the global causes of disability [5].

This week, we wish to challenge ourselves and our community to approach the men in our lives and start a (health) conversation. This week is a call to action, especially to our female members, to lend an arm or an ear to those men in our lives who appear invincible - but are in fact as vulnerable as anyone else to mental or physical illness.